How can I select child node programmatically, in dynatree?

Question

I'm using jQuery's dynaTree in my application and I want to select the all the child nodes programmatically when a parent node is selected. The structure of my tree is as follows

<div id = "tree">
    <ul>
       <li>package 1
         <ul>
           <li>module 1.1
              <ul>
                <li> document 1.1.1</li>
                <li> document 1.1.2</li>
               </ul>
            </li>  
            <li>module 1.2
               <ul>
                 <li>document 1.2.1</li>
                 <li>document 1.2.2</li>
               </ul>
           </li>
        </ul>
     </li>
     <li> package 2
        <ul>
          <li> module 2.1
            <ul>
               <li>document 2.1.1</li>
               <li>document 2.1.1</li>
            </ul>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </li>
    </ul>
</div> 

Now what I want is that when I click on tree node with title "package 1" all its child nodes i.e (module 1.1, document 1.1.1, document 1.1.2, module 1.2, document 1.2.1, document 1.2.2) should also be selected.

Below is the approach I have tried to use:

$("#tree").dynatree({
        onSelect: function(flag, dtnode) {
            // This will happen each time a check box is selected/deselected
            var selectedNodes = dtnode.tree.getSelectedNodes();
            var selectedKeys = $.map(selectedNodes, function(node) {

                //alert(node.data.key);
                return node.data.key;


            });
            // Set the hidden input field's value to the selected items
            $('#SelectedItems').val(selectedKeys.join(","));

            if (flag) {
                child = dtnode.childList;

                alert(child.length);
                for (i = 0; i < child.length; i++) {
                    var x = child[i].select(true);
                    alert(i);
                 }
            }
        },
        checkbox: true,
        onActivate: function(dtnode) {
            //alert("You activated " + dtnode.data.key);
        }


    });

In the if(flag) condition I get all the child nodes of element that is selected by user and it gives me the correct value that I can see from alert(child.length) statement. Then I run the loop to select all the children but loop never goes beyond the statement var x = child[i].select(true);

And I can never see the statement alert(i) being executed. The result of above statement is that if I select package 1, module 1.1 and document 1.1.1 is also selected but it never executes the alert(i) statement - no other children of package 1 are selected. In my view when first time child[i].select(true) statement is executed it also triggers the on select event of its children thus making a recursion kind of thing

Is my thinking correct? No matter what recursion or what on earth it does, it does not complete the loop and execute the very next instruction alert(i).

Please help me in solving this problem. I'm dying to see that alert, any suggestion and help is highly appreciated.

Answer 1

Barely tested, but you could try something like this:

$(function(){
    var inEventHandler = false;
    $("#tree").dynatree({
        checkbox: true,
        selectMode: 2,
        [...]
        onSelect: function(select, dtnode) {
            // Ignore, if this is a recursive call
            if(inEventHandler) 
                return;
            // Select all children of currently selected node
            try {
                inEventHandler = true;
                dtnode.visit(function(childNode){
                    childNode.select(true);
                });
            } finally {
                inEventHandler = false;
            }
        }

Answer 2

Although being not an expert of Dynatree's internal capacities, I wrote some code that generates breadcrumbs for the clicked node and all its descendants.

In example below, clicking on "edibles" would output:

edibles
edibles > fruits
edibles > fruits > apples
edibles > fruits > apples > green apples
edibles > fruits > apples > green apples > granny smith
edible > vegetables
edible > vegetables > potatoes

whilst clicking on "green apples" would output:

edibles > fruits > apples > green apples
edibles > fruits > apples > green apples > granny smith

You can draw inspiration from this example and retrieve the fields you need from all children documents and generate your HTML output.

The code is in this thread: Best way to generate text breadcrumbs from a PHP array having 3 columns (id, path, name)?

The PHP script itself is called from Dynatree's onActivate event handler through a jQuery.ajax({...}); query.

Answer 3

Use the following function in place of the one from mar10's answer.

All child nodes are selected/unselected on parent node select/unselect.

onSelect: function (isSelected, node) {
    node.visit(function (childNode) {
        childNode.select(isSelected);
    });
},